Most of the OT forums are based on attacks against the guy you disagree with. Most of it is ad hominem or sound-byte level logic.

I'm a little interested in why you are voting for whichever candidate you are voting for.

If you are voting for Romney, is it:
- Economics (what does he stand for that you agree with?) What do you believe he will do and how will it help or hurt?
- Social Issues (same thing)
- Forgeign Policy
- He's not Obama (what things has Obama done that you would want to see reversed)?
- He's not a Democrat (would never vote Democrat because......)

If you are voting for Obama, is it:
- Economics (what does he stand for that you agree with?) What do you believe he will do and how will it help or hurt?
- Social Issues (same thing)
- Forgeign Policy
- He's not Romney (what things would Romney do that you would not want to see)?
- He's not a Republican (would never vote Republican because......)

If you are voting for someone, why?

If all you want to do is call conservatives "racist", or liberals "communists", there are other forums for that....

I'm voting for Obama. Social issues are important - I'm pro-choice, for gay marriage, etc. - but the economic ones are more important right now. The biggest problem we face right now is a lack of demand. The Republican proposals don't address that problem and the right in general has argued that stimulus type programs don't work.

I made my choice based upon the two things which matter the most to me, which are attempting to recover the economy and defending education, and they both pointed in the same direction. So after being undecided for a long period of time, I cast my ballot for the lesser of two evils - the same as I did four years ago.

The single biggest important issue is the state and recovery of the economy. Nothing else matters that much. In our modern American capitalist machine, it is the poor who are squashed so the rich can make more money, and the only way to mitigate that is to reduce the numbers of poor by creating jobs and boosting the economy. Education is also important for the future of our nation.

I think foreign policy is heavily over rated by many people in terms of this election. It matters, sure, but not as much as some people pretend it does. It never should have been the focus of an entire debate, that's for sure.

I have very strong moral and ethical feelings on many social issues. Unfortunately, I could not vote for the candidate who more closely resembles my social morals because it would have meant voting the opposite of those more important issues I listed above. On top of that, even the candidate who was closer to how I feel on social issues still doesn't match my beliefs or even come close, so it was easy to ignore social matters in favor of voting for the better candidate for the economy and education.

while I agree with most social issues of the democrats.... my priority has always been less taxes and smaller government and will stay that way until the government can spend my money effectively. I'm really intrigued by what a real executive with real business acumen (rather than a politician) will do to the government from a fiscal responsibility standpoint. no other president that I recall has run a large business before. mitt has a proven track record of turning around losers.... I hope he can do that for us before the USA finds out the hard way what the fall from grace feels like.

Economics mostly. I think that he has the kind of experience to make things work. There are people at Comcast that move between divisions and striaghten out Departments. They are not overly likable, but they fix problems. I think that is Romney. A Fixer.

While I personally am far to the left on some social issues, I am willing to let society as a whole work it out. It is better to let the people tell the government what they want than the other way around. I will still try to convience people to allow gay marriage, pornography and drug legalization, I am uncomfortable with it being forced on the masses by the courts. So Dem vs Repub isnt important to me.

I am a realist on foreign Policy. There are horrible people in the world and sometimes we need to kill them. The Dems never seem to get this. Always go Repub on this so Romney is an easy choice.

This may be a separate debate, but I've heard people attack "Obamacare" for so long now and yet nothing I've read about it gives any reason as to why it's supposedly a bad thing.

From what I've read so far, it does a lot of things, and all of them are good in my opinion - but I don't know as much about it as others do, so if there is someone who thinks it is bad, I'd like to know why.

Posted by bistiza on 10/29/2012 3:34:00 PM (view original):This may be a separate debate, but I've heard people attack "Obamacare" for so long now and yet nothing I've read about it gives any reason as to why it's supposedly a bad thing.

From what I've read so far, it does a lot of things, and all of them are good in my opinion - but I don't know as much about it as others do, so if there is someone who thinks it is bad, I'd like to know why.

Here's my problem with Obamacare: while it does a lot of good things (coverage for those who don't have coverage now, coverage for pre-existing conditions, etc.), I'm more concerned about how it does it, and more specifically, what it doesn't do.

The basic problem with health care in the U.S. is that the current system is broken and bloated; there's a lot of money floating around through the health care system. Providers, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. There's a lot of economic inefficiencies in the U.S. health care system.

From what I can tell, Obamacare does nothing to try to identify and correct those inefficiencies. It just throws over a trillion dollars and a shitload of federal bureaucracy at a broken system. That's NOT the way you fix problems. It's a trillion dollar plus band-aid.

A personal example to illustrate what I see as part of the problem: around a year and a half ago, I changed my primary care physician. I went for my first visit to my new doctor for a baseline physical. I was at the doctors office for maybe 35 minutes. I actually met with the doctor for around 15 of those minutes. We talked, he checked me out, he had one of his PA's come in and hook me up to an EKG for a few minutes, and that was it. I paid my $20 co-pay and left.

A few weeks later, I got a detailed bill. Total charges for my 35 minute visit was over $900. Insurance covered around $450 of that. My $20 co-pay was deducted. Around $350 was marked as "write-off". I had a balance of around another $80 that I had to pay out of pocket.

Now I don't necessarily have a problem with paying $100 for a physical, though I thought my portion was only supposed to be my $20 co-pay. What bothers me was the $350 "write-off". WTF is that all about? Why is my doctor saying that $350 of my visit is "um, never mind, forget about that"? Now, extrapolate that to the $450 that my insurance company paid. How much of that would have been a "write-off" on the part of the doctor's office had they not paid it? How much is my insurance company, and other health insurance companies, paying to providers for charges that appear to be thrown onto bills just to see how much will be paid? And finally, where is the insurance companies getting the money to pay these apparently inflated bills? (That part is easy . . . it's coming from a combination of my employer's contribution and my contribution to my health insurance coverage).

I'm also guessing that my doctor has to charge a fair amount of money for office visits because he has pretty hefty malpractice insurance that all physicians have to pay. Why is malpractice insurance so expensive? One would assume it's because there are so many frivolous lawsuits being filed by ambulance chasing lawyers and "victims" looking to make a quick buck. Not that all medical malpractice torts are frivolous, but a lot of them probably are. While many of these suits may not be going to trial for a final resolution, many of them are being settled, even ones that have little to no merit, just to make them go away. Again, the money that is being paid by the insurance companies and the health care providers to settle these suits come from somewhere . . . from you and me, in the end.

What does Obamacare do to address any of this? Nothing. But it sure sounds great to those unwilling to ask the questions.